Tunecore Music Distribution Assessment 

Tunecore is one of the oldest and most reliable music distribution companies closing in on two decades of service. A few notable artists have publicly vouched for the program, including Russ and Papoose - now a brand ambassador. It provides an outstanding service because it doesn’t try to do too much and focuses on music distribution. Is it perfect? No, but at $20 for unlimited distribution it’s unreasonable to ask for perfection. It’s nearly a guarantee that you won’t have any issues with the delivery of your music to stores, late delivery, non-delivery, proper metadata, royalty collection, or anything regarding the core functioning of a music distribution company. It provides one of the most detailed royalty reporting dashboards you’ll find on the market. The presentation is on point, and everything looks great. When you use the service you don’t feel like you’re shopping at a dusty dollar store. Beyond White-Glove service and discovery mechanisms, I haven’t seen anything provided by another distributor that would make me rank it above Tunecore. 

Scale. Scaling a business means growing a company in a way that allows it to handle more business without increasing costs. With the unlimited model at Tunecore’s price points of $20 - $50, scale can be an issue but not for Tunecore. First, to safeguard against bad actors that would try to build a distribution service on top of its service, Tunecore charges $14 per additional Primary artist which keeps it from being overloaded and positions it to continuously provide quality service. There are also a host of additional products to drive revenue growth such as Fan Reviews, Tunecore Mastering, and Publishing Administration. 

Top Reason to Choose Tunecore Music Distribution 

Tunecore New Artist Plan 

Tunecore’s New Artist plan offers free distribution of unlimited releases to all Social platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube without any upfront cost. What you pay is 20% of the revenue generated by those sources. This tier doesn’t allow you to distribute music to stores like Spotify, Apple Music, etc. but you may not want or need to have your music in those stores. Social is one of the fastest growing revenue sources for the music industry which has a lot to do with it being the first point of contact. The first place music is shared is on social media platforms, with the hope that people move from those platforms to someplace like Spotify where they’ll stream. It’s common to find artists with tons of social media engagement and barely any streaming activity. If a song gets used as background music in cooking videos artists can earn more from that usage than they’d earn from streaming. Not having to pay anything upfront eliminates any pressure for your songs to produce so you’re effectively playing with house money.

The True Price of Tunecore’s New Artist Plan 

When it comes to revenue splits, the problem is if things go right, you end up paying a lot more than you would if you paid a flat annual fee. $10K a year would have you paying $2,000 annually vs. using a distributor like Distrokid or Venice Music that would allow you to keep 100% and charge you flat fees of $35 - $500 annually. One thing I consider with Tunecore is their involvement with Silento and the success of Whip Nae Nae. They played a significant role in the growth and popularity of that song after seeing it start to bubble by collaborating with dance companies to create high-quality video content. The percentage is well worth it when you have a partner willing to step in and throw gasoline on the fire. 

Top Tunecore Features

• Quality Checks - Tunecore is more demanding when it comes to the quality of your audio, cover art, and metadata. Though it might feel like a nuisance, it’s better than having your release rejected by DSPs after waiting weeks for it to go live. Their quality checks help you to avoid problems.
• Royalty Report Dashboard- Tunecore’s royalty report dashboard is great. You can view a full picture of the revenue performance of your releases by cross-referencing streaming activity with revenue and breaking it down by country and platform.

Tunecore Plans & Key Differences - Is It Worth Upgrading? 

Tunecore New Artist Plan Features 

• No upfront fee 
• 20% of revenue 
• Distribution to Social Media platforms: TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube 
• Customer Service Response Time: 5 Business Days 

Tunecore Rising Artist Plan Features - Includes everything in the New Artist plan

• Distribution to streaming platforms and music stores - Essential and self-explanatory. 
• Keep 100% of revenue from streaming platforms and music stores - Essential, this is the core reason for choosing Tunecore. 
• Access to Tunecore Rewards - Earn when you learn by watching educational content. 
• Scheduled releases - Essential to proper planning and marketing strategies. 
• Artists revenue splits - Essential if you’re sharing revenue with collaborators. 
• Customer Service Response Time: 3 Business Days 
• Use your own ISRC code - Essential if you want to transfer releases from another distributor. 

Tunecore Breakout Artist Plan Features - Includes everything in all of the plans above

• Customer Service Response Time: 2 Business Days - An essential service if you want problems resolved quickly.
• Store Automator - Automatically adds releases to new stores saving you time and preventing any loss of revenue. Though not essential, very important. 
• Daily Trend Reports - Consolidates streaming and sales activity across multiple stores saving you time by not having to log in to multiple sites to check your stats. 
• Cover Art Generator 

Tunecore Professional Artist Plan Features - Includes everything in all of the plans above

• Customer Service Response Time: 1 Business Day - An essential service if you want problems resolved quickly.  
• Access to Exclusive Partnerships 
• Promotional Opportunities 
• Pro Panels & Expert Advice Sessions 
• Custom Label Name - An essential feature for branding and presentation purposes. Allows you to avoid looking like an amateur  
• Use Your Own UPC Code - An essential feature if you want to carry over album saves from another distribution service or like to use UPCs you own. 
• Release Level Country Restrictions - Maybe you don’t want your music available in a country being accused of Genocide or you used a sample and the terms of the clearance bars you from distributing to a particular country. This isn’t necessarily an essential feature but it could be an important one. 
• Record Location 
• Add Additional Artists: $14.99 per artist annually - An essential feature if you’re working with multiple artists. 

Does Tunecore Charge For Split Pay? 

Collaborators sign up for a discounted Tunecore account paying $8 annually to collect their share of royalties. 

Tunecore Additional Artists & Featuring Artists 

Distributing music for multiple artists would require you to pay $14.99 annually for each artist. Distributing joint releases where another artist and you are both Primary artists but use separate distributors would also require you to pay $14.99. To avoid the fee, all collaborating artists need to be listed as Featured artists. 

Tunecore Customer Support 

There is no phone or live chat support with Tunecore. There’s only email support and response times are determined by your plan. Cheaper plans result in longer wait times. 

Tunecore Accelerator Program 

Tunecore’s Accelerator program takes 20% of your royalties in exchange for providing a host of services aimed at driving greater discovery and growth. Core promotional vehicles are Spotify’s Discovery Mode, YouTube’s Creator Music program, and Pitches. We know Spotify Discovery Mode is a program operated by Spotify that is free to any artist with music on the platform and can be accessed from within their Spotify for Artists dashboard. It requires zero involvement from Tunecore or any distributor. Additionally, Discovery Mode charges artists 30% of the revenue from streams generated from sources used by the program to drive Discovery. You end up paying Spotify 30% of revenue from sources like Daily Mixes, Artist radio stations, etc. plus 20% of all revenue from streams and sales to Tunecore. YouTube’s Creator Music program allows fans to either pay for usage of your music in their videos or agree to revenue splits that allow them to use your music while maintaining a percentage of the revenue generated by their videos. This isn’t a feature that drives discovery, it’s more about not discouraging anyone who wants to use your music from doing so by eliminating the fear that their videos will be claimed and rendered un-monetizable. It’s effectively the same thing as Facebook and TikTok’s audio libraries but with the exception of granting users the option of paying for a license and buying out all royalties for their content. Artists are automatically opted into the program but have the option of opting out. 

Things of note

Streaming Fraud Accusations 

There has been an industrywide crackdown on streaming fraud that has seen lots of artists have their music removed due to allegations of engaging in the practice without proof. You can watch our video on streaming fraud for more information on the topic. Distributors are now charged a fee for every violation. With massive client bases with thousands of artists, many releasing a hundred tracks or more, these violations can bankrupt a company. Consequently, distributors have taken a zero-tolerance policy to protect their businesses. Every major distributor with a large share of the market will have artists hurling accusations of having their music removed due to streaming fraud. If you don’t see complaints about it for a digital distributor, it’s just a matter of time before you will. If you’d like to completely avoid the risk of being flagged for streaming fraud, the only option is to work with a White-Glove music distribution company like Venice Music. 

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